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SPRING IN LONDON 

A POEM 
ON THE NATURE OF THINGS 



BY 



NEW YORK 

E, P. DUTTON & CO. 

1907 



SPRING IN LONDON 

A POEM 
ON THE NATURE OF THINGS 



BY 
E. A. 



NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & CO. 

1907 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies RccfciviG 

NOV 21 1307 

y£epyrixht Entry 
CLASS Ou XXc. Nu, 
COPY B. / 






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Copyright, 1907 

BY 

E. P. BUTTON & CO. 



Ube ftnicherbociter press, flew l^ork 



SPRING IN LONDON 



SPRING IN LONDON 



High on the window-ledge the burnished dove, 
With rosy feet parading, courts his love, 
Pausing awhile to send upon the air 
His joy melodious for all men to share, 
While she attentive feels the season thrill 
With might resistless through each ruffling 

quill, 
Presage of days to come when love must give 
Place to endeavour that new life may live. 
And their young loves renew as those of yore, 
At the sweet year's returning loved before. lo 

Now on the sward, where tender suns caress 
The pearly snowdrop's drooping loveliness, 



2 SPRING IN LONDON 

The peacock wheels and shakes his jewelled 

fans, 
At once his longing and the sound that bans 
The dear approach of others, while the air 
Rings with his triumph cry and their despair. 

Or, when the Morn, distrustful of cold 

skies. 
Keeps late her mantle, till the sun arise, 
And, lifting it, strikes down into her heart, 
Yet unawakened, with a warmer dart; 20 

At whose compelling power the vital springs 
Leap in the germ, and lo, a crash of wings, 
A splash and plunge of w^aterfowl who lave 
Their sudden ardour in the cooling wave ; 
After his kind this utters on the air 
His joy sonorous for all men to share, 
While that attentive feels the season thrill 
With might resistless through each ruffling 

quill. 



SPRING IN LONDON 3 

And Earth renews her race by field and flood, 

As when He made them who pronounced them 

good. 30 

Or haply from the fierce primordial glow 
Of worlds in being, through the urge and flow, 
His spirit, labouring to express the plan, 
Which through far aeons was to end in Man, 
Drew forth from matter forms in rude essay, 
Monstrous, barbaric, born to pass away. 
And in the crash of continents upturned 
Prepared new kingdoms, and the lesson 

learned 
(If we may take the fancy from his page, 
Who Hmned it for us with immortal rage) 40 
Of power made impotent before the will 
Of one less strong, but whose more potent 

skill 
By art and order wins where fury fails, 
And, seeming to be conquered, yet prevails, 



4 SPRING IN LONDON 

Though taught by suffering to subdue his pride 
And yield to rule at last. Thus as a guide 
To deeper truth the legend we may take, 
And find that it was written for our sake. 

But from that other to more sacred lore 
Turning, we may His purpose best explore, 50 
And find it in the voice, if but we can 
Hear it, which speaks within the heart of man, 
Dreadful or kindly, fraught with peace or 

woe, 
Our guide, or following Fury, as we go. 
For this, 't is sure, from all created kind 
Sets man apart, his still-foreknowing mind, 
And conscious knowledge, sense of loss and 

gain, 
Reflection, and the price of knowledge, pain. 

But does not Nature, "red in tooth and 
claw," 
Make pain the same prerogative and law 60 



SPRING IN LONDON 5 

For all her creatures? Pitying man, subdue 

Your own self-pity, and believe it true 

That He, who formed them with these powers 

for joy, 
For a wise purpose added the alloy 
Of pain, without which being could not be 
(Godhead itself from pain may not be free), 
Or, being, in abortive sloth had lain. 
Till schooled to effort by the rod of pain ; 
They die in myriads, but the blow which kills 
Spares them old age and its attendant ills. 70 

For in reflection lies the power to draw 
Things from their course determined under 

law. 
Which without effect, though for ends unseen, 
Cradles the universe in lap serene. 
Thus all things visible we see confined 
To functions uniform in every kind. 
Taking no thought, with neither choice nor will 



6 SPRING IN LONDON 

Performing miracles of matchless skill. 
Blown out of nothing in the void profound, 
The whirling vortex forms the solid ground, 80 
And on her fatal way, divinely led, 
The rolling orb we call the Earth is sped; 
To turn, her function, and, in turning, give 
The alternation by which all things live. 
And so, through night and day, she could 

not choose 
But weave the garment which she still 

renews. 
So in each kind untaught from hour to hour 
Creatures emerging find to hand the power 
They use without regret or haste or rest. 
Since that they must, and what they must is 

best, 
By which their several natures unperceived 91 
Take shape through effort and by wants 

relieved. 
And if through waste the inevitable law 



SPRING IN LONDON 7 

Is seen to work, and with devouring maw 
Mars in the process, born of stress and strife, 
Myriads of forms to make a single life, 
Is not the lesson that the life must be 
Less perishable than the forms we see, 
More precious in the sight of Him who lends 
To form the power of living for His ends? 100 

But in reflection and the backward throw 
Of judgment gathered in the ebb and flow 
Of mortal circumstance and human cares, 
The plaint of story and the theme of prayers, 
Comes hesitation and selection made, 
Motive, the object and the issue weighed. 
And for the creatures what the law makes 

plain 
Becomes in man a sense of doubt and pain. 
So wrested from its native use we see 
Each several impulse, which in them is free,i 10 
By absence of reflection, from the sense 



8 SPRING IN LONDON 

Felt in mankind as loss of innocence: 
Anger, the fire of courage and the glow 
Which braves extinction, made in the man the 

woe 
Which works in envy, though by grace divine 
Transformed to energies of thought which 

shine 
In deeds of service; love, the source of all 
Delight in nature, whose imperious call 
All things obey for increase, made the play 
Of thoughts destructive and of deeds which 

slay 1 20 

Spirit and flesh, or, to subjection brought, 
The spring in man of fancy and of thought 
Transcendent, where through forms of art we 

find 
Kindled a sense of longing in the mind. 
Thus it appears that man, to law though 

bound. 
In a distinctive liberty is found, 



SPRING IN LONDON 9 

Unshared by those for whom the word on high 
Was final in "Increase and multiply." 
In these we see His works, in these behold 
The operation of His power unfold, 130 

But not in these His nature is revealed, 
There the word given or the book unsealed, 
Fair to behold they still must bear their part 
The oracles of God are in the heart. 

Of this the witness among men of old, 
In the divine foreknowledge, we are told. 
Was left, lest strength o'ergrown in labours 

rude 
(The hard condition of an earth subdued^) 
Should lose the sense of Right^ through pride 

and lust 

Spurning her ancient alters in the dust, 140 

And obdurate to pity, faith or ruth, 

> Genesis i: 28. 

2 Mky} of the Greeks. \ 



lo SPRING IN LONDON 

Men should turn beasts and miss the way of 

truth. 
Thus to the varying needs of race and clime 
Voices responsive through recorded time 
Come from the borderland which lies be- 
tween 
Things grossly visible and things unseen. 
Always the spirit, for the spirit's needs 
Watching unwearied, cherishes the seeds 
Of its self-knowledge, through which lies the 

way 
To its unfolding in the light of day, 150 

Planted divinely ere the world began. 
Which was to bear the destiny of man. 
And as the good which is not won through pain 
And effort for the spirit is not gain. 
So all the story of this world of ours 
Is but a ministration to its powers. 
Which through our common life the impress 
find 



SPRING IN LONDON ii 

Of act, restraint and discipline of mind; 
For pleasure weakens, and a way to Heaven 
Through thought alone to mortals is not given. 

Late grew the power of thought, and later 

still 1 6 1 

Of thought in action, where the conscious 

will 
Judges, corrects, prepares, restrains, intends, 
Renouncing present for remoter ends, 
Unsought by earlier life, whose weaker view 
Was bounded by the simple wants it knew, 
Slowly maturing under stress of change 
And circumstance to sight of longer range. 
And as the powers adapted to the strife 
Of earthly being gathered shape and life, 170 
And took in time the kingdom in control 
Held long in trust by forces of the soul. 
Less in the field of consciousness was found 
The presence of those ancient forces, bound 



12 SPRING IN LONDON 

In legendary story and dethroned 

By younger gods. Calm was the life they 

owned 
In the light's borders, and tradition feigned 
The age as golden in the days they reigned. 
So still in men called savage we may trace 
Instinctive powers once common to the 

race, i8o 

Who, on a lower plane of life than ours, 
In thought unformulated pass the hours. 
And, lacking foresight, also are more free 
From care and apprehension than are we. 

Who has not wondered, under southern 

skies. 
Hearing the sounds monotonous which rise 
From throb of drum light touched by swarthy 

hand. 
The cries far carried through the silent land, 
Passing for song, where, swaying to and fro. 



SPRING IN LONDON 13 

The circling bands of frantic dancers go, 1 90 
About and round, and ever and anon 
Women's shrill voices urge the measure on, 
And from his pillow, strewn beneath the 

dome 
Of alien stars, he sees again his home — 
Who has not wondered whence the pleasure 

springs, 
And what it is which lends the spirit wings, 
Waking in repetition sudden fires. 
Kin to the unity the soul desires, 
Which with more joy those breasts impassive 

fill 
Than all we offer for their good or ill? 200 

And yet those forces, though beneath the 
ground 
Of our life's level captive held and bound — 
Not otherwise than, hurled from heaven's 
abode. 



14 SPRING IN LONDON 

The fabled Titan feels the crushing load 

Of Etna, but, immortal, yet may brave 

The power which quelled his fury, and a 

wave 
Of fierce destruction send, if so he can, 
On fruitful fields, and wreck the works of 

man — 
Sometimes burst forth, like unsuspected 

springs. 
And flood the plane of customary things. 210 
Of such are primal instincts, seen most clear 
Where love in weakness triumphs over fear, 
Desires and passions, forces of the soul 
The will must break, and broken may control, 
By habit and suggestion, to inspire 
Our weak intentions with a living fire. 

Again in insight we may see made plain 
Things sought with labour, and long sought 
in vain' 



SPRING IN LONDON 15 

As when, in some rude age, a man appears, 
And holds a mirror up to future years, 220 
With royal ease embracing in his view 
Thoughts, actions, manners, lives of every 

hue 
And colour, in relation so combined 
By art of words mysterious, that the mind, 
Receiving of their import, sees its thought, 
Formless before, expressed, and what it 

sought. 
But could not find or utter, at its call 
To nourish and delight itself withal. 

Homer wrote Homer, that is my belief. 
In this preferring Andrew Lang to Leaf,^ 230 
And Johnson, with a poet's judgment, said, 
That of the books of all the Iliad 
No one could be displaced. The sacred fire 
Burns not in syndicates; schools may inspire 
> Homer and his Age: Andrew Lang. 



i6 SPRING IN LONDON 

Art imitative; but the primal spring 
Rises in solitude. So for a thing 
Sacred I must revere the book which holds 
A dead world's living utterance in its folds, 
Subject to no corruption, bearing on 
Witness to other men, when we are gone, 240 
That spirit is, and, of the things we see, 
Is the one true and sole reality. 

With difference in degree, though not of 
kind. 
We see how insight works in human mind, 
As though some special purpose to attain 
Each race had found its being, nor in vain 
Suffered in turn and hoped beneath the sun, 
And ceased from living when its course was 

run. 
Thus Greece in thought, in action Rome pre- 
vails, 
While that in action, this in insight fails, 250 



SPRING IN LONDON 17 

The one prepares the soil, the other lays 
Lands to broad lands, and intersects with 

ways 
The world for its estate, ere yet was sent, 
For the life-giving and the nourishment, 
The stream of revelation rising pure 
In the recesses of a race obsctire, 
Narrow, tenacious, setting all its store 
On gain and reverence of ancestral lore, 
For if upon a world yet unsubdued. 
Peopled by beings ignorant and rude, 260 
Had dawned the consciousness of things 

divine 
In all its singleness, as rays, which shine 
For light, in too much ardour may destroy. 
So in the world the powers which we em- 
ploy 
Had withered in the unfolding, and un- 
trained 
By life's endeavour spirit had remained. 



i8 SPRING IN LONDON 

And yet, though to the light his eyes were 

sealed, 
Which at the time appointed was revealed, 
Not less with piety and reverence due 
The art of Homer shows the good and true 270 
In human conduct, winning through delight 
Men's hearts from baseness, and the sense 

of right 
Commending to a world of men whose life 
Lay most in deeds of violence and strife. 
And if his deities, with men confused, 
Shared in man's nature and their powers 

abused, 
Yet so man's life, unequal yet to soar 
To purer contemplation, was the more 
Ennobled, than if earth and heaven lay 
Impassably apart; and so the day 280 

For him was sacred^ and the night divine, 

yiEpov f/ju6p — "the sacred day": the epithet 
being used descriptively and without emphasis or 
special significance. 



SPRING IN LONDON 19 

As part of nature, breathing in his line 
In her unconscious beauty and the power 
Which rends the forest or uplifts the flower; 
Ere yet the sun of innocence went in, 
And on the earth the shadow cast of sin — 
An idle thought perchance, and idly turned. 
For with reluctance is the lesson learned 
That painful are the ends which men pursue, 
And distance lends enchantment to the view. 
But let it pass; by innocence I mean 291 

Absence of feeling of the gulf between 
Man and his thought, and not a state from 

crime, 
The issue relative of place and time, 
Exempted; and by sin, the sense which feels 
The sinning, where the light of grace reveals 
The far remove from purity and truth, 
The way marked out through penitence and 

ruth 
To better purpose, which no human law 



20 SPRING IN LONDON 

May satisfy, though still it hold in awe 300 
Crime, as it can, and must, to vindicate 
Security and order for the State; 
And so it came to pass that love prevailed, 
And found a way where law and justice 
failed. 

Truth lies uneasy on the bed of power; 
And earthly rule at best is for the hour; 
The force controlled to light our path and 

guide 
May, if ungoverned, turn to hate and pride; 
And 't is the law of spirit, and its sin, 
Power and dominion over men to win, 310 
And so perchance were trial and distress 
Set for their portion, who, possessing less 
Of the world's kingdom, are endowed the 

more 
With the hid treasure of the spirits' store. 
Spiritual men in every age, we see, 



SPRING IN LONDON 21 

Are more remorseless in authority 
Than those who, fashioned of a grosser clay, 
Are less apart from men, and find a way 
More easy for their halting steps to tread 
Than that more steep by which the soul is 
led. 320 

In the persuasion of example pure 
Lies more the remedy and sovereign cure 
For human ills than all that men for man 
By laws have ordered since the world began. 

When stretching far before the hirnian face 
Lay the ungarnered harvest of the race. 
Hardly in thought arising from the soil 
It was to work with patience, skill and toil, 
The mind, on action bending, had not turned 
Its gaze within, nor yet the nature learned 330 
Of its own reflex image to explore, 
And what was unexplained became the lore 
Of men by reverence fenced about and fear, 



22 SPRING IN LONDON 

Called variously magician, augur, seer 
Whose art, in pristine purity, believed 
In deeper wisdom through the soul received 
In dreams or contemplation than was found 
Amid the concourse of the world around. 
Kept then and guarded were the secret 

springs 
In symbols old and fond imaginings 340 

Of mystic import, serving for their hour, 
But bursting as the sheath which binds the 

flower. 
At the due season, when the spirit stirs 
In riper consciousness, nor mounting errs 
From its true nature, though it leave be- 
hind 
Some drift of beauty tossed upon the wind. 
For through the forms adapted to our needs 
And natures, varying widely as our creeds. 
The spirit presses, moving still in mind 
The last expression of itself to find, 350 



SPRING IN LONDON 23 

In the long cycle of its journey through 
The manifold to apprehension true. 

So too the Greek, whose love of life required 
Corporeal form for what his soul desired, 
And in his fancy peopled lands and seas 
With shapes of beauty for divinities. 
Yet through the days he passed beneath the 

sun 
Still in the many recognized the one, 
As where in Homer, at his need extreme, 
The king of men invokes the lord supreme, 360 
And he whose mighty line, like wave on 

wave, 
Burst on the multitude he sought to save 
From folly, pride of wealth and lust of power, 
Speaks through the Pythian priestess, at 

the hour 
Of invocation, where she traces through 
The line oracular in order due. 



24 SPRING IN LONDON 

** And last in this my prayer on him I call, 
Zeus the supreme and highest over all." ^ 

So also when the centuries had brought 
The world together, and the power of thought 
And sifting speech had rifled all the store 371 
Of ancient faith, and widening more and more 
Between the many ignorant and few 
A gulf was set, and one, who writing knew 
The world's philosophies, essayed to find 
Solace in formal knowledge and to bind 
The soul to matter, yet the song he vsings 
By its own native power at times takes wings, 
As, breaking from his grasp, it leaves the 

ground, 
And mounts in harmony of solemn sound, 380 
Requiring still of unresponsive skies 
The present deity its theme denies, 
Yet must imagine, in its flight unfurled, 
1 Aeschylus, Eumenides. 



SPRING IN LONDON 25 

Beyond the flaming outworks of the world. 
Beyond the flow, beyond the ceaseless strife 
Of atom hurled on atom and the life 
Resulting, in his mind there seemed to be 
Some seat apart of careless deity. 
For what is God, he thought, must, under fate, 
And in its nature, keep a timeless state, 3 90 
Removed in utter distance, where no sound 
From world of ours disturbs the peace pro- 
found. 
Needing us not, immune from all our cares. 
Untouched by anger and unmoved by prayers.^ 

1 The lines of Lucretius of which the six preced- 
ing lines purport to be a translation, are well known : 
Omnis enim per se divom natura necessest 
Immortali asvo summa cum pace fruatur, 
Semota ab nostris rebus seiunctaque longe; 
Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis, 
Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nil indiga nostri, 
Nee bene promeritis capitur neque tangitur ira. 
De Rerum Natura, ii, 646-651. 



26 SPRING IN LONDON 

Oh, how shall I, ungraced, with lips pro- 
fane, 
Approach more nearly to the blessed train 
Of those who, pure in heart, in patience wait 
The heavenly vision, when the opening gate 
Of passage from this life rolls back and brings 
Before their sight the promise of the things 400 
God hath prepared for those whom love has 

brought 
Into His harmony in will and thought? 
How may I dare to teach, who have not 

known 
The way of knowledge, nor yet made my own 
The lesson of that life which on the earth, 
Even as those words were uttered,^ had its 

birth? 
Enough if late, and with unworthy hand, 
I bring my offering weak, and hope to stand 
J The peom of Lucretius was probably written 
•Bbout 55 B.C. 



SPRING IN LONDON 27 

Somewhere afar, and point to men the way 
Their steps, Uke mine, may follow to a day 410 
Of clearer knowledge, running golden through 
All art and nature to the one and true. 



28 SPRING IN LONDON 



II 

'Tis something sweet the road of life to 

tread 
By friends companioned and by courage led, 
And hopes high-mounting, ere the hand of fate, 
Falling in envy, has laid waste our state ; 
Who can repair our loss, and what restore 
The joy and comfort which we knew before? 
Who can give back the flawless heart, the 

name 
Unsullied, or unspeak the word of shame, 
Undo the deed disastrous, or declare 9 

Things are the same again as once they were? 
For time contains them, and earth rolling on 
Bears them away irrevocably gone. 

Hear Shakespear's art — not as the world 
believes. 



SPRING IN LONDON 29 

Most deeply conscious where it most deceives — 
Shred in, in some great page of pomp and 

power, 
The tumbled petals of life's fragile flower, 
Killed at the wayside by self-censure's frost. 
The tragedy of reputation lost. ^ 

To err is human; ay, but who may bear 
Human forgiveness? Love, now here, now 

there, • 20 

May win us from ourselves, and give the 

brain 
Pause from remembrance and the heart from 

pain. 
And from a woman's eyes there still may 

shine 

1 As Cassius in Othello, Act ii, Sc. 3 : 
"lago. What, are you hurt, lieutenant? 
Cassius. Ay, past all surgery," &c, 
and Enobarbus in Anthony and Cleopatra, Act iv, 
Sc. 6 and 9 : 

"I am alone the villain of the earth," &c. 



30 SPRING IN LONDON 

Undimmed the pity which men call divine; 
But we are what we are, and from the round 
Of separate being no escape is found, 
As often as we look within and trace 
The path of self, and meet it face to face. 

Who on that retrospect may pause and say, 
" Here I was satisfied, or there the way 30 
Led to the summit of my hopes, and brought, 
Had I but known it, all the joy I sought?" 
Who rather, as he journeys, has not found 
The top surmounted but the rising ground. 
Which, as he climbs, still opens on his view 
Remoter heights which melt into the blue? 
Vainly we would recall some golden hour. 
When youth and fancy thought to weave a 

bower 
Of bliss perpetual, and the skies above 
Flushed roseate with the dawning fires of 

love; 40 



SPRING IN LONDON 31 

The day has been upon us and its strife, 
The dust and heat, its glories and its life, 
The good, the ill, the pleasure and the pain, 
Laughter and tears, the losses and the gain, 
And soon upon our journey will appear 
The sacred Night, with all her signs austere, 
As passing from the bounds of light we tread 
The way still onward where our steps are led. 

But leaving fancy, which an idle time 
Employs for pleasure, trace we in our rhyme. 
Which, straining now to see the end in view, 51 
Presses more onwards, how the old and new 
Find contact, and the present from the past 
Takes its inheritance. In time the last 
We stand upon the earth, and hear the claim 
Full oft of progress, happy in a mane 
Which saves a world of thought, and gives 

a tone 
Of elevation to the things we own 



32 SPRING IN LONDON 

For locomotion, and to ease the toil 
Due, for the sin of Adam, to the soil. 60 

True, that in living we must find delight 
In ordered excellence; but from our sight 
How shall we banish all the things which show 
In health our weakness and in joy our woe, 
And prove us, when as gods we fain would be, 
Beneath the laws of frail mortality? 

Desire soon spent, how soon its garland 
clings 
In galling fetters, and the joys it brings, 
To nothing leading, find the aimless feet 
Back where the end and the beginning meet 70 
In the same circle, where upon the plane 
Of lost direction men pursue their pain. 
Now rise before them palaces and trees. 
Nodding in fancy to the parching breeze, 
Pools at their feet appear, and shrinking take 
The azure semblance of a distant lake, 



SPRING IN LONDON 33 

With woods begirt, and bearing on its 

breast 
The fabled isles of happiness and rest. 
An ancient moral, but as true to-day 
As ever, that the flesh may not allay 80 

The cravings of the spirit. But what need 
To ply examples? He who runs may read. 

So too for those who in restraint have 

brought 
The body's needs, and with insistence sought, 
Through toil and abstinence, to wrest some 

power 
To have and hold beyond the passing hour 
From life's great storage, if upon their view, 
Bounded by space and time, no ray break 

through 
From the eternal, how their portion must 
Appear in moments as a heap of dust, 90 

Where ants assiduous hurry to and fro, 



34 SPRING IN LONDON 

Some carrying corn, some young, and some 

who go 
Idle while others toil, and all a vain 
And blind endeavour on a barren plane. 
And what of those the more, for whom the 

gift 
Of life is labour in the endless drift 
Of circumstance and hazard, by the day's 
Necessities conditioned, if their ways, 
By wife and child though cheered, have yet 

no end 
But food and raiment, and endurance lend loo 
No hardihood to spirit, nor employ 
The freer soul in thankfulness and joy? 
Or those whose living seems to give the lie 
To earthly visions, chastening the high 
Hopes for the race's future entertained 
Through knowledge of the powers of nature 

gained ; 
Broken, diseased, degraded and outclassed. 



SPRING IN LONDON 35 

Hungry and squalid, lives in lying past, 
Perforce or in their weakness, yet at call 
Some drift of kindness running through it all ? 
And truly poverty may sacred be ; 
But without hope, and if the things we see 
Round and complete our little life, ah, then, 
Let the word die unspoken, and the pen 
Fall from the hand; of all beneath the sun 
What profit have we when the day is done? 

Not new, but with the growth of spirit found 
More painful, are the things we see around 
Our daily path. 'Tis in ourselves that lie 
Pleasure and pain. Insensibility 120 

Cloaks its condition, and forgets to find 
The rents which others pity whom the wind 
Buffets in furs. So of the spirit ; all 
Are not born equal, and what some men call 
Meat is for others poison. So with trust 
In purpose for the whole the part we must 



36 SPRING IN LONDON 

Accept, nor vainly clamour in the face 
Of Heaven, because its ends we cannot trace. 
There is no pain but what the spirit feels; 
Spirit in triple brass the body steels; 130 

And food and raiment have no power to give 
Health to the conscience, since we cannot live 
By bread alone, and every flower that springs 
Is clothed, we know, more gloriously than 
kings. 

But, of the growth of spirit, does the span 
Of life allotted to each several man, 
With all its incompleteness, give the clue 
To life's endeavour? May it claim as due 
To one existence, severed from the whole 
In space and time, if even for a soul 140 

Immortal be the issue, all the blind 
Attempts and failures in the ranks behind? 
Were those more worthy whom the sacred 
song 



SPRING IN LONDON 37 

Of bards has rescued from oblivion's wrong, 
Than those unwept before them, who, as 

brave. 
Are folded in the silence of the grave ? 
Did violence prevail that we might go 
In safety for some threescore years or so? 
And that the rays of kindlier truth might 

light 
Our path have millions wandered in the 

night? 150 

And do we darkling go in doubt and pain, 
That ages hence may have a way made 

plain? 
Perchance, as some have held, the answer lies 
In life renewed, and, when the body dies. 
The spirit in its proper elements. 
Rarer or grosser, is enlarged or pent, 
Till, at the time appointed, for its needs. 
Or through desire, it gathers up the seeds 
Once more of body, and communion find 



38 SPRING IN LONDON 

Again through sense and instrument of 
mind. i6o 

So in this view, the lives of men — compared 
To waves, which separate, yet in oneness 

shared 
Of the great ocean, travel to the shore 
At last — though 't is illusion, for the more 
The movement or the less, the volume fills 
The same content, and what its motion spills 
Upon the edge escapes not, but remains 
Part of the volume which the whole retains ; 
Whereas the claim of spirit, pressing through 
All life and being, all we think and do, 170 
Lies in identity — so, in that view. 
The lives of men may be the passage through 
Of souls, in number finite, sent to gain 
Knowledge through suffering on a mortal 

plane 
And if, the thought repelling, comes the old 
Objection that existence manifold, 



SPRING IN LONDON 39 

If such there be, yet leaves upon the mind 

No memory of the stages left behind, 

Is it so certain that the self we know 

In waking hours, to which impressions flow 180 

In infinite gradations, is the whole 

Sum of our being, or that what the soul 

Assimilates is only what the brain 

Has power, in grosser texture, to retain? 

Bodies deemed solid now are known to be 

To forms of matter from all hindrance free, 

Which stream in viewless energy through all 

The cosmos of the infinitely small. 

Whence comes refreshment, when upon the 

eyes 
Sleep has descended, and the body lies 190 
Relaxed and motionless? We wake and feel 
Our life renewed, the more if o'er us steal 
A lethargy so deep the hours between 
Seem blotted out as though they had not 

been: 



4P SPRING IN LONDON 

Surprised at times to find a thought made plain, 
Whose thread ere sleeping we had sought in 
vain. 



That time we slept, we must admit, from 
death 
Differed in nothing save in drawing breath ; 
So utterly the deep oblivion drew 
Our being from us; to all trace or view 200 
Lost for the conscious mind ; and some main- 
tain 
That forms of matter subtler than contain 
The sleeping body, passing from it keep 
The soul attendant through the hours of sleep ; 
And yet not wholly, else would cease the 

breath. 
And o'er the limbs the pallor pass of death. 

Also there are who, seeking to explore 
Minds God-afflicted, or to gather lore 



SPRING IN LONDON 41 

In paths, if not forbidden, yet where some, 
Rashly adventuring, into woods have come 210 
Of error and distress, or darker woe. 
Conclude (though here is little that we know) 
That consciousness is complex, and the sense 
Of waking life derives its sustenance 
In part from life upon whose powers less 

frail, 
Though unperceived, nor death nor sleep 

prevail. 
And sometimes to the surface may arise 
This portion of our being, and surprise 
The senses — as we think — ^though that may be 
Illusion — when with eyes we seem to see 220 
A loved but distant presence, or to hear 
Its footstep falling on the startled ear, 
And learn, not unprepared, that on that day. 
And hour, the life which loved us passed away. 
This too with sense-perceptions may contend 
In dreams, if sleep be light, or waking blends 



42 SPRING IN LONDON 

With sleeping, and the senses lightly bound 
Retain some motion; but of sleep profound 
The path is dreamless, that is, conscious mind 
No trace, in waking, of its course can find. 230 

But leaving these and other states which 

show 

Hints of remoter consciousness below 

The field of apprehension, let us draw 

Into our theme some evidence of law 

Working through diverse being. Can it be 

That chance determines such diversity.^ 

I speak not of condition, but of mind, 

Rather of spirit; for where one will find 

His pleasure, there another taking part 

Meets but with pain and heaviness of heart. 

240 

Yea, there have been who, in this world of 

ours 
Moving as strangers, felt within them powers 



SPRING IN LONDON 43 

To circumstance ill tuned, and in their ears 
Heard words of warning, gathering through 

the years 
In weight imperious, to renounce the ways 
Of human fellowship — such as in days 
Of old were prophets, or who labouring 

brought. 
Through forms of art, the visions which they 

sought 
Into the hither verge; and less to-day 
Perchance the call for such, whenas the way 
Of life runs broader, and from door to door 251 
The word more swiftly travels than before. 
"No prophet speaks and every vision fails, "^ 
So, as of old, men cry; but what avails 
That one be great, while others in the mire 
Are sunk of ignorance and low desire? 
What need of prophets, when the light they 

saw 

» Cf. Ezekiel xii: 22. 



44 SPRING IN LONDON 

Before the rest is risen, and the law, 
For the hard journey given, has yielded place 
To the diviner liberty of grace? 260 

The word is nigh us, and that all might know 
Its virtue was it given long ago 
To some, who labouiing set it as a seed 
To spread and blossom for our later need. 
For us. it seems, the word prophetic came, 
For us the burden and for us the shame 
Were borne, who in the broad and beaten way 
Of man's estate enjoy a brighter day, 
And in the spirit's freedom are more bold 
Than those called greatest in the world of old. 
And idly do they talk who in their hour 271 
And generation find the source of power, 
And from some script new-written trace the 

cause 
Of life's enfranchisement, or seek in laws, 
Though good, its growth. And herein may 

we see 



SPRING IN LONDON 45 

How love and patience triumph, and how free 
From care are those, who, counting all things 

less 
Than the divine endeavour, can express. 
With no accessories of wealth or art. 
The beauty of the grace-illumined heart, 280 
Shining on homely doings, and the round 
Of duty gladdening, as the sun the ground. 
And these in lowliness of heart attain 
A deeper wisdom than with toil and pain 
Men find through knowledge; and to such is 

given 
On earth, though few, to share the peace of 

Heaven. 

But why, if before all this state is blessed. 
Should not all find it, and attain to rest 
From strife and passion? Surely so would 

cease 
The world to be a world, for its increase 290 



46 SPRING IN LONDON 

Is rooted fast in evil, and through strife 
To win possession is the law of life. 
To this opposed, a higher law, it seems, 
Wins on the world, and to itself redeems 
Spirits in being; for through all we find 
Deeper divergence than depends on mind, 
Tastes or attainments. Gloze it as we will, 
Rooted in spirit must be good and ill, 
As principles opposed; and these between 
The soul is moulded; and its powers unseen 
Are greater than we know, ill-mated here 301 
The more as they are quickened; yet appear 
Growth good and evil, and to either tend 
Increase and incHnation; and the end 
Of being is not compassed in the span 
Which folds about the pilgrimage of man. 

Ah, without hope beyond the grave, how 
vain 
And barren are the schemes we entertain 



SPRING IN LONDON 47 

Of human happiness ! Though youth untried 
May vaunt each new specific, yet abide 310 
Death and decay and tears ; we but begin 
When we must make an end; wife, children, 

kin, 
All must be left, the works we call our own. 
The words and doings, friendless and alone 
To pass we know not whither, or, if fate 
Decrees, to watch their going, and to wait 
Our end in sorrow. Not that, even so, 
We may not bear in patience ; but the foe 
Of cheerfulness is thought, unless its sky 
Is lit by hope; so men distraction try, 320 
And seek in crowds contentment ; but if this 
Is all we win to, something seems amiss 
With the philosophy that bids us find 
Our happiness in health and powers of 

mind. 
And why, if this be all, should some pursue 
Dreams for realities, and count them true ? 



48 SPRING IN LONDON 

Ay, and those not the least by greatness 

weighed 
Of understanding ; masters who have laid 
Their spirit on the world ; or, rather, stirred 
By strong compulsion, who enshrined the 

word 330 

They needs must utter in the forms which 

lay 
To hand in nature, and upon the way 
Set landmarks of the soul, to ages hence 
In witness of its working and the sense 
Of things by time untouched, and judgement 

still 
Waiting, though long deferred, on good and 

ill. 
So, in an instance, speaks the volume where 
Is shown the vision of the soul laid bare. 
Seen doubtless through the medium of an 

age 
Of iron, yet all human, in the page 340 



SPRING IN LONDON 49 

Prophetic of the Florentine, who threw 
On darkness visible the forms he drew 
Of souls in torment, doubting not that love 
Without that justice could not perfect prove, 
Or that the song which blanched his cheek 

had less 
Than a divine uprising, and in stress 
And storm was gendered for some purpose 

high 
Beyond the counsels of mortality. 
So on the gulf impassable between 
Perfection absolute and evil seen 350 

Dwelling, he showed it under forms which, 

crude, 
Yet speak conviction ; for the age was rude, 
And lust and insolence could then appear 
Unmasked, and in those lines we seem to hear 
The cries of earth redoubled, where in hell 
Vengeance is wrought, and on the dark air 

swell 



5© SPRING IN LONDON 

Cries hoarse with anger, voices rent with 

pain^ 
From those who, living, sought the body's 

gain. 
Stifled the spirit and denied the light, 
Now sunk in darkness and unending night, 360 
Blaspheming God, their seed, the time, the 

place 
Of their begetting and of all their race.^ 



Can this be written, and yet men believe 



1 Cf. Dante, Inferno, iii. 22 seq: — 

Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai 
Risonavan per 1' aer senza stelle, 
Perch' io al cominciar ne lagrimai, 

Diverse lingue, orribili favelle, 
Parole di dolore, accent i d' ira, 
Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle, 

Facevano un tumulto, 

2 Dante, Inferno, iii. 103-105: — 

Bestemmiavano Iddio e lor parenti, 

L' umana specie, il luogo, il tempo e il seme 
Di lor semenza e di lor nascimenti. 



SPRING IN LONDON 51 

There is no judgement? or that those who 

grieve 
The spirit's striving, which in man appears 
The ordered purpose of his transient years 
(Whether to make the soul or to restore, 
Mind veiled in matter may not here explore), 
Can, when the body passes back to dust — 
If self endure, as still endure it must, 370 
Or all the effort here and all the pain 
Of life and living were a dance insane 
Of atoms somehow drifting into shapes. 
Thought of by apes as men and men as apes, 
Indifferent which, since in the end they all 
Are as they had not been, and, where they 

fall, 
Rot in corruption — can they hope to win 
Help in the anguish which amerces sin? 
Happy perchance if only they retain 
The power of suffering, and may come through 
pain 380 



52 SPRING IN LONDON 

Into the borders of those fields of light, 
Then dimly seen beyond the enclosing night, 
Seen with what wonder and with what desire, 
The bourn of love denied, where souls aspire 
In the immensity of worlds concealed 
Beneath these shows of matter, but revealed 
About, above, beneath us, in no skies 
Remote and strange — oh, grant it Heaven! — 

when eyes 
Forget their lustre, and the light of day 
Passes in darkness like a dream away. 390 

The shadows fall, and on the quiet air 
Earth breathes her fragrance, like a soul in 

prayer. 
Here where the city's heart still keeps a place 
For flowers and v'erdure and the waving grace 
Of trees, now motionless against the blue. 
Dim, darkening heavens. And now a rosier 
hue 



SPRING IN LONDON 53 

O'erspreads the west, and on the skirts of 
night 

Glows and is gone. Then opens on our sight 
The deep and moving wonder, whose amaze 
At times appals our vision as we gaze, 400 
And find no answer, but where, freed from sin, 
The soul in innocence responds within. 
And knows no doubt or fear, but in the hanp 
Of Love and Wisdom feels its being stand. 

Finis 



NOV 21 i9D? 



